I am a freelance writer with a focus on the Ballard neighborhood. I love connecting what is happening in the community with my own life. I was born to be at large.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..

Sherman Alexie & Ballard

I can’t believe that I considered NOT going to the Sherman Alexie reading at the Ballard Library last week (sponsored by Secret Garden Bookshop). I watched the date inch closer from 2,600 miles away and thought I should continue to admire him just through his words. In fact I was even registered to attend a news blog event through City Club on the same night (sorry about that no-show). This from a person who had been trying to read parts of his latest book aloud to a stranger less than one week earlier. How could I not go?

Not only did I decide to attend, I was the crazy person who asked Ballard librarian Ellen Fitzgerald at 3:30 p.m. if there was a line formed yet and if they were going to hand out numbers? “Not yet,” she said but admitted, “I’m so excited.”

Even though Rebekah Schilperoort had never read any of his works before she could feel the buzz in Ballard. We were respectively #’s 2 and 3 in the line that eventually did start forming at 5:30 p.m. and wrapped itself around the plaza before they unlocked the doors at 6 p.m.

The people watching was great, including one woman whose suit looked like she belonged onstage at the national convention. Upon being told the doors wouldn’t open until 6 p.m she snapped, “you mean I have to stand up all that time.” She proceeded to read the latest edition of “Architectural Digest” outside with the Do Not Remove from Library label prominently displayed. Two people in the front row insisted on saving seats for their “guests.” One gentleman managed to hold off the 80+ attendees who didn’t have seats and even made a call on his cell phone after Sherman Alexie started speaking to try to describe his location (like his “guest” was going to get past the 80 people).

Alexie stopped speaking and looked at the man until he hung up. The guest never joined him. Meanwhile Alexie addressed the people pressed against the outside glass. “Can you hear me?” They smiled but didn’t hear him well enough to shake their heads. Alexie said it made him feel like a cult leader with the faces pressed around him like he was the center of a giant bubble.

I’ve heard Sherman Alexie on the radio. I’ve listened to him speak to a crowd at an anti-war rally from above the Chandler Pavilion at the Seattle Center. I’ve read profiles and his books, his poems, his essays and the screenplay for “Smoke Signals.” Ever since I read “Indian Killer” in the late 90′s I have never once passed Westernco Donuts without thinking about its brief appearance in that work. What I wasn’t prepared for was his charisma. Perhaps he draws energy from crowds or else he just puts off an incredible amount of energy – he could run a generator by himself.

Looking back on three decades of attending readings I’m hard pressed to come up with one that rivaled his in terms of creating shared excitement. To think I ever considered not attending. I’ve needed to recover from the excitement ever since. (Along with reading his Web site www.fallsapart.com like a groupie).

Rebekah Schilperoort took a great photo of Sherman Alexie which accompanies the BNT column on-line. After he saw a woman looking to film him on her laptop (the other front seat saver but she gave it up after her friend texted that she wasn’t going to make it) and nixed that idea I got too chicken to take any photos.

The next day I spoke to the owner at The Secret Garden Bookshop…more on that later.

On Thursday, Sept. 4 the meeting room at the Ballard Library wasn’t big enough to accommodate all the people who wanted to be in the same space with writer Sherman Alexie.

Many author events have outgrown the Secret Garden Bookshop’s retail space and their events continue to draw larger and larger audiences. Soon there will not be a venue big enough in Ballard for certain literary events, as it becomes a literary destination for the Secret Garden’s Set Here Series.

Sherman Alexie’s most recent work is marketed as young adult but the 200+ people squeezed inside and pressed outside of the Ballard Library encompassed all ages, teenagers neglecting to hide their grins and a crowd completely mixed in ages if not diversity. “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” has been on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year now; a work which Alexie deems “60.7% true.”

Then again he warned, everyone’s memories are completely fallible.

Other Secret Garden events have likewise drawn lines and attendees from as far as Montana, but for this night Ballard got to reclaim a chapter in Sherman Alexie’s past. Alexie recalled living in Ballard upon arriving in Seattle 14 years ago.

“People mocked us,” he said. “And now it’s all cool.” Taking stock of the overflow crowd he claimed his dream is to build an office large enough to hold a basketball court and have it look like the Ballard Library. Examining the Paul and Miriam Twitchell Meeting Room he said the rounded space looked like “Al Gore and Captain Kirk had a baby.”

Alexie doesn’t deny that his life experiences and communities are reflected in his writing, whether it is the Rez in many works including “Absolutely True Diary,” Ballard in “Indian Killer” or Capitol Hill in the preview he read of “Radioactive Long Songs” to be published in April 2009.

After riffing on the library and Ballard with comedic timing (he also does stand-up), Alexie received audience approval to read from his new work even though he said it would be a “tease.” “It’s really good,” he promised. For the next 45 minutes Alexie read from what will be the first chapter of his next young adult novel.

As he read, pausing for laughs and even learning that one of his errors made the work funnier, the entire crowd laughed almost continuously. I noticed a teenager listening, usual aloofness transformed by a beaming smile. When Alexie described the teenage narrator’s lovelorn condition as “one million miles north of okay” every last person could relate to him.

A friend told me later that she felt like everyone listening had the same face, as though the pleasure of his presence and spoken words were affecting each audience member in the same way.

“We couldn’t help turning to one another impressed by the connection that we all felt.”

When the reading ended, there was stunned silence. “It’s a good one,” Alexie repeated a bit more self consciously as the audience recovered.

His unhurried question and answer period often morphed into mini-monologues on political issues and music. He commented that what has been particularly rewarding is that his first young adult novel has opened his work to all ages.

Alexie writes poetry and short stories in addition to his fiction and essays. He’s working on the screenplay for “Absolutely True Diary” and revealed that it will be part of a four part series. About writing for young adults he said, “There can be condescension about adolescent feelings. Their emotional lives are as complicated as ours. It’s great to write for them. I get to go back and be smarter.”

The event marked one of the bookshop’s Set Here Series aimed at hosting authors whose works are set locally, and was also presented in conjunction with the Ballard Branch of the Seattle Library.

Reflecting about the event on the day after, Secret Garden owner Christy McDanold said the Alexie reading is news because of the book’s popularity but his appearance is part of an overall commitment on their part to connect authors and readers.

“Readers are readers are readers,” McDanold said, “the events are a piece of what we do and the vision we’ve long had for a literary Ballard.”

“I’ll sign books right here,” Alexie announced after the final question and then sat down next to the podium to laugh and talk with a stream of people clutching his books. Librarians and audience members began to stack and roll away the chairs. Meanwhile to the west where faces had pressed against the glass the pink clouds of a brilliant sunset were streaking the sky.

Strangers who had been breathing on each other’s necks moved apart almost reluctantly, no longer of the same face. But as Alexie had promised of his new book and more than delivered for the night, it had been a really good one.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..